Learn Humbly: Changing From the Inside Out March 10, 2010

Learn Humbly:

Changing From the Inside Out

March 10, 2010

One Month to Live

30 days to a no-regrets Life

by Kerry and Chris Shook.

Principle 1: Live Passionately, Living each day as if it were your last.

Principle 2: Love Completely, showing others love that transcends and transforms.

Principle 3: Learn Humbly, growing through your problems and pain

Principle 4: Leave Boldly, Creating a legacy that will impact generations

Day 19, March 10, 2010—Changing From the inside Out

“Making room for that which is capable of rejoicing, enlarging or calming the heart.” — Gerhardt Tersteegen

“How does one become a butterfly?…You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” –Trina Paulus

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:2

People who discover that their time is limited often make radical lifestyle change. They give up workaholism and slow down the pace of their lives. They relinquish the pursuit and collection of material possessions and finally enjoy the fullness of what they already have. They rediscover the simple pleasures of curling up by a fire with a good book or sharing a picnic in the shade of a huge oak tree on a summer day.

Our restlessness manifests itself as a dis-ease of the soul, a growing discontent that has reached epic proportions today. We make much more money and enjoy many more conveniences than our grandparents did, yet most of us are not happier. We decide that a vacation will enable us to slow down, but when we arrive at our destination, we discover that we have forgotten how to relax. We have difficulty spending time alone. We don’t know how to connect with ourselves, let alone those we love most.

Motion Sickness

We move at such a rushed pace each day that we begin to suffer from spiritual motion sickness. To counter the motion sickness, we move even faster. Were always moving to the next big thing, new house, new car, new spouse, a new relationship. The restless of your soul can’t be satisfied with things.

Paul suggests that we must be transformed. The word “transformed” comes from a Greek word, metamorphous, from which we get metamorphosis, literally meaning “to be changed from the inside out.” Faith-filled maturity is changed from the inside out.

“If you have to move one inch from where you are right now to be happy, you’ll never be happy.”

The antidote to the motion sickness of our souls is stillness, the ancient art of just being still. “Be still, and know that I am God!” Psalm 46:10. Motion and commotion steal the soul, but stillness restores the soul.

When was the last time you were still? When was the last time you turned off the television and just sat quietly? When was the last vacation that you did not check e-mail or answer your cell phone?

Mission Control

We are people who enjoy being in control. We control our image, our problems, and our pain. We try to control other people, but they don’t always cooperate, and it’s frustrating. The antidote to the control-freak fever that we all experience is solitude, time to be silent with ourselves and with God. Time with God reminds us of how little control we actually have over our lives and how faith and trust are God’s ways of prevailing in our lives.

Comparison Compulsion

Another symptom of our soul’s dis-ease is when we feel compelled to compare ourselves to everyone around us in order to know who we are and what we’re worth. When we use status symbols to determine our worth and identity relative to others, our souls will dry up. Once again, this is trying to change from the outside in, not the inside out.

Metamorphosis originates within. In butterflies, the coloring on their wings is not caused by pigment but rather by a prism like effect as light is reflected off their transparent wings. Transparency transforms in our lives too.

The opposite of metamorphosis is the Greek word metaschematizo, meaning “to change the outward appearance.” We get the word masquerade from its root. God wants a metamorphosis, not a masquerade.

Service is the best antidote for comparison compulsion. Service transforms us from comparison to compassion.

Crisis of Comfort

Often our goal in life is to be comfortable. Yet when our commitment to comfort affects our pursuit of God, we can become stagnant, bored and depressed. The final symptom of soul sickness in modern life emerges when we try to insulate ourselves from pain, suffering, inconvenience, and discomfort. The comfort-zone virus will steal our happiness and shrink our soul.

You don’t have to go looking for suffering. Suffering will come into your life. I wish I could promise that, “If you love God, you’ll never have a death in your family, never lose your job, never have a failed relationship, and never get sick.” But that is a promise I can’t make. Suffering comes to all of us. God offers his grace in the midst of the suffering.

Grace is the power to change – not what we can do for ourselves but what God does for and through us. Metamorphosis comes only by grace.

If you had one month to live you would want to:

Stop the ceaseless motion of a busy life and enjoy stillness. Stop the comparisons and look for ways to love and serve others. Stop living for comfort and drink deeply of God’s grace.

Prayer: Lord, come and be lord of my life. Help me this Lent to slow down and be still with you. Show me ways to love and serve others in tangible ways that change my life. Enrich my life with your grace and change me from the inside out. Allow my soul to find its rest in you. Amen.

Learn Humbly: Withstanding the Winds of Change March 9, 2010

Learn Humbly:

Withstanding the Winds of Change

March 9, 2010

One Month to Live

30 days to a no-regrets Life

by Kerry and Chris Shook.

Principle 1: Live Passionately, Living each day as if it were your last.

Principle 2: Love Completely, showing others love that transcends and transforms.

Principle 3: Learn Humbly, growing through your problems and pain

Principle 4: Leave Boldly, Creating a legacy that will impact generations

Day 18, March 9, 2010—Withstanding the Winds of Change

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.’” –Maya Angelou

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: Eccles. 3:1 NRSV

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Jeremiah 29:11 NRSV

In life, difficult change is inevitable; half of our battle is learning to accept that reality. The other half is seeking God’s wisdom for dealing with each storm.

When the storms of life hit, we must choose how to respond. Too often we are caught unprepared for the storms and stresses that come into our lives and our relationships suffer. We can’t prevent the storms of change blowing into our lives, our marriages, our families, our relationships and our careers. But we can prepare for them and learn from prior storms.

The winds of change will either make you stronger or knock you down. It all depends upon your response.

Winds of Change

In Acts, Paul is a prisoner on a ship headed for Rome. A storm arrives and blows the ship off course.  But they were no sooner out to sea than a gale-force wind, the infamous nor’easter, struck. They lost all control of the ship. It was a cork in the storm. Acts 27:14-15

Change happens, it is inevitable. You can waste a lot of time and energy fighting it. But if you don’t adapt to life’s unexpected situations, your ship will be destroyed. Stubbornness is not a friend when the storms blow, because the wind can shred you as you attempt to be unmovable.

Yes, change is frightening, uncertain, and threatening. But life can be found in the midst of change.

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.” Alfred Souza.

What do you consider the happiest season of your life? How often do you think about it or find yourself wishing you were back in it? How does your present season of life compare to it? Is nostalgia causing you to miss out on present opportunities?

Crash Course

Navigating through Life’s storms require two tools.

Steer with the storm, not against it. In Paul’s encounter with the storm, they were ready to give up hope. It had been many days since we had seen either sun or stars. Wind and waves were battering us unmercifully, and we lost all hope of rescue. Acts 27:20

Do know that feeling of hopelessness? Maybe a storm has been raging in your life, and the dark clouds have been swirling for days, weeks, or years. You just can’t see through the storm, and hope is or has faded. Don’t give up! Paul saw beyond the raging storm and remained confident. Allow God to open your vision beyond the present moment and see the future. God will use the painful changes in our lives as a means for good.

Cargo Hold

Perspective and how we view the world are invaluable in the storms of life. Change can clarify our priorities and illuminate what’s really important.

Next day, out on the high seas again and badly damaged now by the storm, we dumped the cargo overboard. Acts 27:18.  The precious cargo that was deemed valuable just a few days before suddenly seemed worthless and they began to throw it away. Storms will force you to reevaluate your priorities.

What tangible cargo have you lost in one of life’s hurricanes? What cargo have you had to intentionally release in order to survive a storm? How did your priorities change as a result of losing material items?

The Unmovable Anchor

When the storms blow, we learn how to change course and ride out the storms, but we also know that there will be a time to drop anchor to stay in place.  Afraid that we were about to run aground, they threw out four anchors and prayed for daylight. Acts 27:29

You need an anchor in your life that will hold you through the storms of life.  For Jesus doesn’t change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he’s always totally himself. Hebrews 13:8  While everything else is changing around you, God never changes.

When the storms of life blow, remember that God knows right where you are. You might feel all alone, but God is still with you. God is behind the storm, in the midst of the storm and beyond the storm, always there waiting for you, ever present. God will see you through with the unmovable anchor of His presence.

The winds may be picking up and the rain is beginning to sting you face. You may be afraid, anxious or depressed. The storm may claim you cargo. You may be sea sick, soul weary, and weak. But you’re going to make it. God will be in the storm with you.  For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Jeremiah 29:11 NRSV.

Prayer:  God where are you? Sometimes I can’t hear or see or feel you. Please show me a glimpse of your presence. Come and surround me with your love, hold me in the midst of the storms. In your strength, I can handle this storm, as long as I know you are with me and will give me abundant life. Amen.

Learn Humbly: Finding Your Direction March 8, 2010

Learn Humbly:

Finding Your Direction

March 8, 2010

One Month to Live

30 days to a no-regrets Life

by Kerry and Chris Shook.

Principle 1: Live Passionately, Living each day as if it were your last.

Principle 2: Love Completely, showing others love that transcends and transforms.

Principle 3: Learn Humbly, growing through your problems and pain

Principle 4: Leave Boldly, Creating a legacy that will impact generations

Day 17, March 8, 2010—Finding Your Direction

“The Place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” —Frederick Buechner

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’” –Erma Bombeck

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; [5] and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 1 Corinthians 12:4-5 NRSV

He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. 2 Corinthians 1:4 NRSV

A GPS device is great for driving directions. It can help you find the fastest route to your destination. However, if there are tall buildings, sometime you can lose the signal and get lost quickly.  Your GPS needs a clear signal from satellites to find its position and steer us to our destination. In life we need a clear signal from God so we can discover our position and place in the world. Until we discover our place, our niche, our purpose in life, we’ll always feel lost, even when surrounded by a crowd.

When was the last time you were driving and became lost? What’s your usual response when feeling lost, whether on the highway or in the circumstances of your life? Where do you turn for direction?

A Galaxy of Gifts

If we’re going to find our way through the many circumstances and choices of life, we must be willing to use three crucial resources: Our Gifts, Our Passions, and Our Struggles.

God has given all of us unique abilities and talents.  Often we tend to compare ourselves to others and become discouraged because we focus on what we don’t have or can’t do as well as others.

Ask yourself: What do I do well?  How effectively do I use that gift?

God Within: Our Passions

We will find our place and purpose in life when we discover our passion. Paul wrote in Romans: “Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically” 12:11 NLT. The word “Enthusiastically” comes from two Greek words meaning “God within”. Enthusiasm and passion come from God within us. God has places the passions of my life deep inside me for a reason: He wants me to pursue those passions.

When was the last time you felt passionate about an experience? What were the circumstances? What gifts did you sue? What does this experience tell you about your purpose in life?

Total Eclipse: Our Struggles

When we are living through struggles, problems and difficulties, we learn to depend upon God. We learn our own limits and how we need God’s power and strength to help us through the tough times.

God uses our wounds to make us stronger and to help those around us. He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. 2 Corinthians 1:4 NRSV

God can take my struggles and turn them into stars that shines of God’s glory. The problem is that often we’re eclipsed by others’ expectations. We conform. We people please. We strive for approval and settle for the path of least resistance rather than the abundant life off fulfilling our God-given destiny.

God has equipped us with His GPS,  that allows us to avoid the detours and dead ends of the conformity traps of life. You can be who God made you to be. This Lent allow God to guide you into others lives and let your passions shine.

Prayer: God you daily give me directions, if I would only listen. Help me to be open to your guidance. Allow me to find my passion and purpose.  Stir the passions and empower me to risk living an abundant life. Help me accept my struggles as ways to jar me from my conformity to the world’s ways and to your transformation of my life. Amen.

Lent 3C March 7, 2010

LENT 3C

March 7,  2010 from Sermon Nuggets

• Isaiah 55:1-9. A prophetic song in which God promises mercy, pardon, and abundant provision to those who repent and trust in God.
• Psalm 63:1-8
• 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. The pattern of the baptized life is to be one of continual repentance, trusting that God will not test us beyond our strength.
• Luke 13:1-9. There is time for repentance and response — the fig tree and the gardener.

-Jesus teaches the people to replace their worldview that bad things only happen to bad people.

-…we are deep in Lent, the season of honesty about our sin and honesty about our need to change.  Willimon

- Jesus refused to be drawn into our questions about unfairness and injustice of the world.  Instead, Jesus becomes our judge and encourages us to repent.  Let us confess our sin–all those things that keep us from wholeheartedly following the way of Christ — Willimon

-Reinhold Niebuhr once said, ” Christians in America would like to believe in a God without wrath that saves a world without sin through a Christ without the cross.”   No fruit produced there.

-Lent is a time for “following.” The narrative about Jesus’ suffering and death provides a way in which we are able, in an act of disciplined imagination, to situate (or resituate) our lives in the story of Jesus. We become aware that the story of Jesus requires and permits a new version of our own story of life and faith. Walter Brueggemann

-But for those of us who have discovered that we cannot make life safe nor God tame, it is gospel enough. What we can do is turn our faces to the light. That way, whatever befalls us, we will fall the right way. B.B. Taylor

-The question for the owner of the vineyard is how long will he allow his soil, moisture and nutrients to be used without bearing fruit. The question for God is how long does he wait until repentance comes to a nation, a church, or an individual.

-Two terrible tragedies had happened in Jerusalem. One in the temple, the other near the pool of Siloam. In the first instance, Pilate, the Roman governor, had killed some Galileans who were making sacrifices at the temple and then he mixed their blood with the sacrifices. No doubt this was a warning to other Jews to remember that Rome was in charge. In the other incident, a tower fell on people near the pool of Siloam killing 18 people who simply happened to be there. How can such things be explained? Rev. Barbara K. Lundblad
-When people came to the Jordan River to be baptized, John called them to repentance. His words were harsh and unrelenting:
“Even now,” he said, “the ax is lying at the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

-Maybe the vineyard is the whole earth. Maybe it’s the church. Maybe it’s your life and mine. Jesus isn’t giving up on any of us–you, me, the  church, the whole earth. There’s hope in this parable–don’t cut the tree down. But there’s also urgency–give me one more year. Rev. Barbara K. Lundblad

-What a grace time can be for us….to have space and time to grow, mature spiritually, reform our lives, serve the Lord and remove the obstacles, big and small, between God and us and between us and others. Look at what we humans put Jesus through and still God didn’t give up on us; we are graced with time.  Jude Siciliano
-The purpose of the first part of Lent is to bring us to compunction.  “Compunction” is etymologically related to the verb “to puncture” and suggests the deflation of our inflated egos, a challenge to any self-deceit about the quality of our lives as disciples of Jesus.
Mark Seale, in “Assembly”, vol. 8, no.3.  Quoted in THE LIVING PULPIT,
-Jesus’ parable moves in the direction of promise more than threat

-There is a story told of a bishop in England who was traveling by train to perform a confirmation service. He misplaced his ticket and was unable to produce it when requested by the conductor. “It’s quite all right, my lord, we know who you are.”  But the bishop replied, “You don’t see. Without the ticket, I don’t know where I’m going.” It is not enough for us just to be here; we need to know our purpose.
-I note that the “sin” of the fig tree is not that it is doing something bad, but that it is doing nothing! It is just taking up space in the orchard. BrianP. Stoffregen

- Why bad things happen to good people?  Book by, Kushner

-The words from the Godspell song, Day by Day, were to the point. “Day by day, O dear Lord three things I pray; to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly… That’s the meaning of repentance. To look at ourselves in the person of Jesus Christ and have a genuine heart’s desire to have his spirit shape our lives.

-Toyohiko Kagawa I read in a book that a man called Christ went about doing good.  It is very disconcerting to me that I am so easily satisfied with just going about.

-Lent is the offer of the vinedresser to each of us of one more year

-But Jesus’ parable isn’t primarily a lesson about farming. We’ve already noted the connection between the three years of the parable and the three years of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is the gardener, isn’t he? He refused to give up on those who are living in the vineyard. Maybe the vineyard is the whole earth. Maybe it’s the church. Maybe it’s your life and mine. Jesus isn’t giving up on any of us–you, me, the church, the whole earth. There’s hope in this parable–don’t cut the tree down. But there’s also urgency–give me one more year.  Lunblade

-”What have you done?” Jesus asks, and “What have you left undone?” Such questions, like the parable of the fig tree, move us toward repentance, a word that means to turn around, to believe things can be different, to trust that the one who calls us to turn around will be there even when we fail. ibid

-Growth is not so much advancing ones self as it is becoming oneself.

–Barbara Brown Taylor, acclaimed Episcopal preacher, writes of the fig tree parable: “(Jesus wants them to turn or repent) which is why he tweaks their fear. Don’t worry about Pilate and all the other things that can come crashing down on your heads, he tells them. Terrible things happen, and you are not always to blame. But don’t let that stop you from doing what you are doing. That torn place your fear has opened up inside of you is a holy place. Look around while you are there. Pay attention to what you feel. It may hurt you to stay there and it may hurt you to see, but it is not the kind of hurt that leads to death. It is the kind that leads to life.”

Learn Humbly: Discovering Who You Were Meant to Be March 6, 2010

Learn Humbly:

Discovering Who You Were Meant to Be

March 6, 2010

One Month to Live

30 days to a no-regrets Life

by Kerry and Chris Shook.

Principle 1: Live Passionately, Living each day as if it were your last.

Principle 2: Love Completely, showing others love that transcends and transforms.

Principle 3: Learn Humbly, growing through your problems and pain

Principle 4: Leave Boldly, Creating a legacy that will impact generations

Day 16, March 6, 2010—Discovering who You Were Meant to Be

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you’ll be among the stars.”–Les Brown

“There lives in each of us a hero waiting the call to action”–H. Jackson Brown Jr.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. Psalm 8:3-5

Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; Romans 1:20

For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. Ephesians 2:10

Today we begin principle number three: Learn Humbly. We begin with the question: Who am I really? Who were we meant to be? To answer the question we must first look at the creator, so we can begin to comprehend what we were created to do.

When was the last time you wondered about your identity and place in life? What were the circumstances? How did they influence your question?

Interior Designer

We were created in God’s image, so it makes sense to look at God’s character in order to understand our character. The world around us is breathtaking and expansive. There is beauty, force and complexity. The more I learn about creation the more convinced I am that there is Creator.

If we’re here on earth by random chance, then how can there be purpose in life? We would be here to simple be enjoying all we can while we can. If there is no Creator, then we become curious, self-aware animals.

When I look at creation, I see a Creator, and I also see glimpse of God’s character. Power, Playfulness, variety, uniqueness is all part of God’s imagination and creation.

Avoiding Identity Theft

If we are created in God’s image, then why do we struggle so much to know who we are, to know our worth? Many of us are not living but simple existing. We have forgotten whose they are and also who they are.

How do we lose our identity? Satan’s plan is to steal, kill and destroy. If he can steal your identity, he will destroy your dreams and your purpose in life. C.S. Lewis said, “There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.”

Our enemy tries to undermine our confidence in who we were made to be. Satan whispers, “You’re not valuable. God can never use you. In fact, God is ashamed of you because you’ve blown it again and blown it again and again and again. You’re not worth much anymore. God has put you on the shelf because you’ve failed to live up to what He hoped for you. You’re not talented enough. God uses other people, but He doesn’t use you. God can’t use you—you’re not spiritual enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re not committed enough, you’re not strong enough.”

Have you experience the enemy trying to steal your identity? What are the messages that run through your mind when you’re down on yourself? How can you counter those messages?

Making the Grade

What are your strengths? What are you passionate about? What makes you blood flow, your pulse quicken? God has gifted you with strengths and talents. Take time this Lenten Journey to use those strengths. Allow the creator to work through your strengths.  You will find your identity as you give away your talents.

Prayer:  Father, sometimes I don’t remember that I’m yours—or maybe I don’t want to remember. Help me in my unbelief. Help me see what it is in me—my doubts and selfish values—that resists remembering whose I am. And help me conquer those, so I’ll never forget you’re my Father. Amen.

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